Forex Special (Barcelona) - A session after Wall Street finished with losses despite news of further stimulus measures by the FOMC statement, Asian equities are mostly in the red as weak data drags on sentiment. So far the Japanese Nikkei is showing deep losses of 2.28%, while the Shanghai Composite is off by a modest 0.25% and the Hang Seng holds onto slight gains of 0.16%.
Stocks over the Japanese market are performing the worst this morning as a strong yen weighs heavily on exporters and a weak machinery orders release brings caution back to the marketplace. Particular firms posting the largest losses include Honda Motors and Canon each off by as much as 2%, while Fanuc and Komatsu, both machinery makers, post similar results.
In China, a slew of recent data continues to suggest a slowdown for the Asian giant as consumer and wholesale prices rose less than expected over the year while industrial output and retails sales dipped slightly. This comes a day after Chinese shares suffered its worst decline in more than a month due to weaker-than-expected imports over July, fueling doubts in the strength of consumption demand.
